Mensa specialist calls for better ways of recognising intelligent children

A Perth-based gifted children's co-ordinator for the IQ society Mensa says there should be more streamlined ways of recognising highly intelligent children.

Alan D. Thompson is presenting at the Illuminating the Spectrum of Giftedness and Talent Development conference in Brisbane today and said more resources were needed to allow gifted children to excel.

"Gifted children require personalised learning so parents and teachers need to look at what they can do to give children access to resources so they can become brilliant, not just bright," he said.

Mensa's cut-off is at the top two per cent of intelligence, or an IQ of 130 or higher.

Mr Thompson works with high achievers, bringing together ideas from the United States, Hong Kong, and Belarus.

He said the range of options for education in WA meant there were different approaches to identifying potentially high achievers.

"Not just your standard public schools, but also your private, your Catholic, your specialist like your Montessori and Steiner schools and, depending on where that particular school is focused or where their particular teachers have been trained, we're getting different results from different schools," he said.

"Added onto that, a lot of parents have decided to do their own home schooling, so it really depends where you are and what teachers have been provided at the particular school."

Mr Thompson said while there was standardised testing, there were not standardised methods of recognition of who should be sitting those tests.

"Perth has a number of schools that are providing resources, specialist programs for giftedness which essentially takes the child out of the classroom and then they get to sit through this extended program, but there's certainly not a standard way of assessing this giftedness outside of, kind of, external psychologists," he said.

Boredom, frustration, anger if gifted children not recognised

There were problems if gifted children were not identified and assisted, Mr Thompson explained.

"Boredom, which comes out quite quickly, if that's left to lapse, that'll be there in adulthood as well but also rebelling, feeling frustrated or getting angry with things and one of the big things we see is complete withdrawal, isolation," he said.

When they're getting to a stage where their brain's shutting down or they're not getting the support they need, it's fairly common to see them just stop, just withdraw completely.

Alan D. Thompson

"So when they're getting to a stage where their brain's shutting down or they're not getting the support they need, it's fairly common to see them just stop, just withdraw completely."

However, Mr Thompson said not every child which showed such tendencies was necessarily gifted.

"These are things that will come out of the intensities of giftedness but certainly you can't just say that characteristic proves giftedness, that requires a psychologist to sit down and work that out," he said.

There are around 60 child members of 200 total members in Mensa Western Australia, which compares favourably with the eastern states.

But having confidence in your child's abilities does not mean that child can join Mensa.

"Are they above the IQ of 130 or are they not?," he asked.

"Mensa does their own testing.

"Up to the age of about 14, they have to go and see a specialist psychologist and then the Mensa psychologist will evaluate that as well.

"Over 14 they can do it with Mensa directly."

High achievers need personalised programs

Mr Thompson said he believed WA had a higher than average percentage of higher achievers.

He is designing a program for a school in Perth which currently has a 14-year-old doing university-level course work.

"They've just been able to see that in him," he said.

"What I'm designing with them is a program where they can provide coaching to an entire grade of students, about 200 students, catering for gifted and high-performing students in general.

"What learning style does that child have? What growth environment do they need, and what are their specific talents?

"So we're not teaching astronomers how to play a concerto, or musicians all about pure mathematics, it's actually about what they need to learn and what they want to learn."

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